The area beneath the Cathedral has recently been excavated extensively, revealing a history of the site dating back to the time of the Roman Empire.[citation needed] From the 8th to 10th centuries it was one of three cathedrals to coexist on the site. The present building has grown from a cathedral devoted to ecclesiastical use and an early Christian funerary cult; the other two structures, subsumed in the 12th century by the growth of the surviving building, were apparently for different uses, one for public sacraments and the other for church teachings.[citation needed]